Intentions vs. Resolutions

Let’s talk about New Year resolutions. I’m sure many of you have these clattering around in your head right about now. There are things you want to change about your life in the coming year and of course, the most popular one is dieting for weight loss.

I need to admit to you that I really don’t like New Year’s resolutions. For me, they are a sneaky way of setting myself up to fail. I’ve also seen this in many of my clients. When you set a difficult goal or try and make a really big change all at once then often we feel so bad when we hit a road bump that we soon give up all together. Life happens, our circumstances get stressful and we return to old habits in a matter of weeks. I know, I’ve been there! Which is why I urge you to consider the word: Intention, rather than resolution!

Intention connotes a decision to make a permanent change in your thinking that is achievable. I also found, from a little googling, that intention has a meaning in the medical world as well; the process of healing a wound. I love that. It means we are getting to the bottom of things, there is a process and healing that needs to take place. Resolve is an excellent character trait. Yet we often only exercise it when we are cutting out something or depriving ourselves of joy.
Perhaps weight loss is a necessary goal for you in the New Year but consider approaching it with the intention of healing your relationship with yourself, your body and food. That is much more sustainable than setting a resolution to cut out all sugar and exercise 6 days a week. This is a path and a journey which we are all on. I personally need to set my intentions every day in order to eat the way I want to and exercise the self-care I need. I wrote all about daily intentions here. It took more than one year to set up these habits that I’ve built and some days are better than others. So I urge you, be careful when setting resolutions this year. Be mindful of your patterns of thinking and what you believe about yourself that may be holding you back.